I'm here. I wanted a day or two to think about things and also read up a bit more about Emily Lindin.

All I can say is that I stand by my original post and that I have tremendous admiration for her. She had her own bad experiences when young but overcame them and then when older hearing about other people who had been through similar or worse experiences and ending up taking their lives - did something about it and set up a charity/helpline for other sufferers to use. I have no idea how long it has been running but it has clearly helped many young/teenage girls.

Her comment was more than 'misguided', mate. It was full of absolute hatred for men and her follow-up tweets show she had no remorse about saying it and refused to back down despite almost the whole of twitter coming down on her like a ton of bricks.

I can indeed understand why she said it, it's because she's a fucking horrible cunt.

Click to expand...

You may read it as hatred for men but I don't read it that way. If you bear in mind that she hears stories of sexual abuse on a regular basis I read it as frustration with the system and also the heavy focus on the innocence of one or two males but overlooking the innocence of many many more women who are also innocent but been abused. I read it as her frustration that for some reason women are still reluctant to report rape for fear of stigmatisation and people not believing them (as highlighted in some of the links in the guardian article and also on her website).

I don't agree with some of what she said on her tweet - but at the end of the day it's just a tweet and it's just an opinion.

Presumably in the same way that extremists telling others on the internet that they should blow themselves up in busy shopping centres are just opinions and should therefore be tolerated.

Click to expand...

Exactly. It might well have been 'just a tweet', but she has over 23,000 followers on Twitter and writes for a teen magazine aimed at young impressionable girls, so clearly will have an influence on her followers and readers.

It's better to have 10 guilty people go free than have one innocent person put in prison, anyone who thinks otherwise (like Emily Linden clearly does - well, as long as the innocent person is male) should have a long, hard look at themselves.

She might well have set up a charity to help people, but I do believe Jimmy Savile used to raise a few quid for good causes too She's undone a hell of a lot of the good work done by the genuine feminist movement and has locked her Twitter account and seemingly gone in to hiding.

She might brush off false accusations as 'very rare' and therefore not worth worrying about, but men have killed themselves after being accused of doing something they didn't do. False accusations ruin lives.

It's better to have 10 guilty people go free than have one innocent person put in prison, anyone who thinks otherwise (like Emily Linden clearly does - well, as long as the innocent person is male) should have a long, hard look at themselves.

Click to expand...

I agree with most of what you say, Seen, but I'm a bit torn on this part. Depends what kind of crimes you're talking. Would you rather have 10 killers on the loose than 1 innocent person in prison? Sure, that innocent person could be you or someone from your family. But by the same token, you or someone from your family could be the next victim of one of those 10 killers on the loose.

What I don't know is where I'd draw the line on these things, either in terms of what crimes are serious enough or in terms of what ratio would be acceptable (5 guilty people free vs one innocent person jailed? 2 vs 1?).

Well, obviously both scenarios are not wanted, ideally we want guilty people in prison and innocents out, but if you had to choose between the two situations, you really do have to keep innocents free. Obviously having guilty people walking free is far from ideal but the priority surely has to be protecting the innocent. Although I do get what you're saying regarding what if the guilty people murder again.

That's why in our courts a jury has to be beyond reasonable doubt, why it's guilty or not guilty rather than guilty or innocent. You might think the accused did it but if there's reasonable doubt you have to let them free as the worst scenario is sending an innocent person to jail.

Also, it was really more about the venomous way she put her point across, strange how someone who supposedly has devoted a lot of time to help those mistreated in life (women, of course) can care so little about other innocents (yep, men only). If she was a man and said something similar about women she'd be very much correctly labelled a misogynist.

And lets not forget, rape and sexual assault are very much crimes which are, for obvious reasons, very difficult to prove, often boiling down to his word against hers - in which case the jury has to basically guess. Not ideal when someone's life could be changed forever.

It must be truly horrible for a victim to see their attacker walk free, but I can't imagine it being worse than an innocent person locked away in prison for many years and forever labelled a rapist/sex offender, for a crime they did not commit.

Yes, like I said, I do agree with most of what you put, it was just that part I quoted that I took issue with, and the statement that anyone who thinks otherwise should take a long hard look at themselves, I don't think it's quite as clear cut as that.

Man flirts with woman. Woman responds in positive way by laughing and later starts relationship with man. During relationship she uses him to get a job reference. They split up. Now she wants to ruin his life.

'What an idiot!' Andy Townsend sparks outrage with 'sexist' language while speaking to women's football star Eni Aluko
Townsend, who was hosting a BBC radio show, was discussing the form of Everton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin last night when he uttered the remark

Andy Townsend has been accused of sexism over a comment made to Eni Aluko
Former Premier League footballer Andy Townsend has been accused of 'sexism' over his choice of language while talking to Chelsea Ladies star Eni Aluko on the radio.

Townsend, who was hosting a BBC 5Live show, was discussing the form of Everton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin when he uttered the remark last night.

Speaking to Ian Wright and Aluko on the Monday Night Club show, he called the England star 'love' - and it didn't go down well with listeners.

Referring to the Everton player's poor form, Aluko put it down to a lack of confidence, adding: "I think that he is a shadow of the player he was at Southampton."

Good job she doesn't live in Manchester then because I don't know anybody who doesn't say love as a term of endearment, especially the older generation, and that includes women referring to men as 'love'.
I think we need to cull these snowflakes before they start kicking off for having the audacity to look at them because that will be next.

About Us

Our community has been around for many years and pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion among people of all different backgrounds. We are working every day to make sure our community is one of the best.